Assassin’s Creed was a great game and an excellent premise for a movie; I don’t know if it succeeded or not, because I haven’t seen it yet. The critics seemed to be underwhelmed, with “confusing” and “disorienting” being the two words most often used to describe it. I don’t know if that’s because none of them ever played the game, or the script was that poorly done, but either way I will stream it before I consider buying it. I also haven’t seen Sing, but there is no question that this animation needs to be a part of my permanent collection. In Anime the new title is Attack on Titan: Junior High, probably the silliest series from this franchise, but still very worth watching. We also get a S.A.V.E. edition of BlazBlue: Alter Memory; The Complete Series, for those who haven’t seen it before now.
DAOKO is an energetic J-Pop artist from Tokyo who recently had one of her songs selected to be the end theme for Shingeki no Bahamut Virgin Soul. Not bad for someone who posted their home made music videos to Nico Nico Douga, and had one of them take off. The first track is Daisuki with TeddyLoid, the second is If we are the Protagonists of the Game, the third is just called Bang. And I threw in a Rage of Bahamut Virgin Soul trailer at the end.
Everything you need to know is in the title; the Hillywood Show is a brilliant parody presentation put together by Hilly & Hannah Hindi, some truly twisted sisters who combine music, dance, and video production to create some of the most amazing short films you can find these days. It shouldn’t be a shock that they have been parodying such pop culture icons as Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings, Supernatural, and Sherlock. The real shock value comes from the fact that their fan base includes the casts of Supernatural and Doctor Who, actor/artists like Billy Boyd, Lady Gaga, and Sean Astin, writers/directors like Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and production houses including BBC America and MTV. With the key players you are creating your parodies from being in the front row of your cheering squad, you have to know you have gotten it right!
Starz signed up to put Neil Gaiman’s American Gods into production, and it looks amazing so far. They have a new trailer I had to share here, and since they also posted their SXSW panel, I am throwing that in as well. The show premieres on Starz on April 30th, these should help you get ready for it! Thanks to Tor for the heads up on this one!
China has finally launched a film festival specifically targeting the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres, called the Just Film Festival. The group appears to have organized in 2014, holding the first festival in 2015, as near as I can tell. It seems to have gotten them off to a good start, because this year around 200 industry professionals were running 3 tracks, with the most popular session being the projects, promotion, and investment presentation. That started off with around 500 potential films putting in their bids for funding, and by the time the dust settled it was narrowed down to just 3 titles: Immerse, Saving Human, and Planet X. I don’t know which or how many of them got the money to begin production, but over the last decade or two there has been an explosive growth in the Chinese Science Fiction literary scene. Some of those books and stories have won recognition world wide, and some of them are now in bookstores in North America; it is nice to see their SF/F film industry starting to get some momentum and recognition as well.
Today is Pi Day, the day that starts off 3.14 and celebrates the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. This day gives mathematicians from around the world an opportunity to educate everyone and celebrate the beauty of the universe. So it seems appropriate to me that Albert Einstein, who once said Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas was born on this day in 1879. Happy Pi Day, Albert Einstein, and thanks for all your wonderful insights and explanations about how reality works!